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Episode 99

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Published on:

26th Jun 2023

Allergy-Free Cooking, Our One-Minute Cooking Tip, An Interview With Author Kayla Cappiello, Pizza Bagels, Breakfast & More!

Food allergies. They prove important if sometimes difficult when you've got guests. We've got lots of answers.

Join us, veteran cookbook authors Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough, as we talk about food allergies and how to handle them when you're cooking for others. We've got a one-minute cooking tip for better burgers. Bruce interviews Kayla Cappiello, a cookbook author who specializes in allergy-free cooking. And we let you know what's making us happy in food this week.

Thanks for spending time with us. Here are the segments for this episode of COOKING WITH BRUCE & MARK:

[01:03] Cooking for people who can’t eat certain things.

[12:39] Our one-minute cooking tip: Pile potato chips for a hamburger.

[13:48] Bruce interviews Kayla Cappiello, the author of EASY ALLERGY-FREE COOKING.

[29:51] What’s making us happy in food this week? Pizza bagels (a recipe on our new TikTok channel) and Mark's standard breakfast: a piece of hard cheese and a handful of berries.

Transcript
Bruce:

Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein and this is the Podcast

Bruce:

Cooking with Bruce and Moore.

Mark:

And I'm Mark Scarborough.

Mark:

And together with Bruce, we have written three dozen cookbooks,

Mark:

including one out this fall, the Look and Cook Air Fryer Bible.

Mark:

If you're at.

Mark:

All interested in air frying.

Mark:

This thing has got 704 photographs for 125 recipes.

Mark:

Every single step of every recipe is photographed.

Mark:

You can't make a mistake.

Mark:

But we're not talking about air frying in this episode of our podcast.

Mark:

In this episode, we're focusing on.

Mark:

Allergy free eating and eating with people who have various food allergies.

Mark:

We're gonna talk through that.

Mark:

Plus, Bruce has an interview with Kayla Cappiello.

Mark:

She's the author of Easy Allergy Free Cooking.

Mark:

Of course, we're gonna give you a one minute cooking tip and of.

Mark:

Of course we're gonna tell you what's making us happy in food this week.

Mark:

So let's get started.

Bruce:

We wanna talk about how to cook for everyone these

Bruce:

days when no one eats anything.

Mark:

I take great offense at that, but I am a ridiculous omnivore.

Mark:

If basically I eat it, if it's put on the plate in front of me.

Bruce:

You were raised that way.

Bruce:

I wasn't.

Bruce:

I was raised.

Bruce:

Spine.

Bruce:

I was raised in a house where food was put on the table, and if I didn't want to

Bruce:

eat it, I was welcome to go in the kitchen and make something else for myself.

Bruce:

But my mother was not gonna make anything else.

Mark:

No.

Mark:

But the other thing is I don't ever remember being punished for not eating.

Mark:

Hmm.

Mark:

So,

Bruce:

but you weren't allowed to go get yourself a bowl of cereal?

Bruce:

No.

Bruce:

If you didn't want to eat the liver and bananas.

Bruce:

No I wasn't.

Bruce:

And yes, his mother made liver and bananas.

Bruce:

Yes she did.

Mark:

Um, it's true.

Mark:

Uh, but no, I wasn't.

Mark:

And I don't know.

Mark:

Now, uh, this is so much longer a conversation.

Mark:

It may have to do, I was adopted as a kid and it may have to do

Mark:

with adoptive kids syndrome.

Mark:

Maybe that, you know, you just so badly.

Mark:

Wanna please these, your adoptive parents.

Mark:

Maybe.

Bruce:

I think I had Jewish kid syndrome.

Bruce:

I'm just gonna eat what the hell I want to eat.

Mark:

Excellent.

Mark:

So anyway, we wanna a little bit about this because it's not

Mark:

true that no one eats anything.

Mark:

No.

Mark:

But people are now more forward with what makes them their stomach upset.

Mark:

Yep.

Mark:

Which gives them dietary distress.

Mark:

I don't think it's actually hard to do this.

Mark:

I just think it requires a level of consciousness.

Mark:

And I think that that is a really important thing and we wanna give

Mark:

you some tips and tricks, right.

Mark:

For how to cook for

Bruce:

other people and don't just say, no, I'm not gonna do it because, Eating

Bruce:

with friends, eating with family, sharing a meal, of course, is so important.

Bruce:

Of course, it's important for your wellbeing.

Bruce:

It's important for your happiness.

Bruce:

It's wellbeing.

Bruce:

It's important for your health just to share food.

Bruce:

So as Mark said, here are a few tricks.

Bruce:

One, keep notes.

Mark:

Yeah, I think this is really important and we keep notes.

Mark:

I keep a little record of what we feed people so we don't have

Mark:

people back over for repeats.

Mark:

Not that there are all that many repeats in our house, but you know, I keep a

Mark:

little record of what's been eaten.

Mark:

There are apps that can do this for you.

Mark:

There are dinner party apps that allow you to track what you've fed other people.

Mark:

Um, I find those cumbersome because I can never make the app fully do what I

Mark:

want it to do, and honestly, a pen and a piece of paper does better for me.

Mark:

But it's important here that you can make notes.

Mark:

Uh, for example, we kind of know our friends who let's say avoid dairy or

Mark:

we know our friends who avoid gluten.

Bruce:

We have one friend who will not eat eggs if they're visible, right?

Bruce:

So I know that I can make, no, that's not an allergy, that's not an, that's

Bruce:

just a personal, that's a personal taste.

Bruce:

And.

Bruce:

That's, you know, something, if someone has a personal taste, it

Bruce:

has to be honored just as much as someone who has an allergy.

Bruce:

Well, because I, I think we have to honor what our friends like and don't like.

Bruce:

Okay.

Mark:

But I can't feed someone with celiac gluten because they're

Mark:

gonna get really violently ill.

Mark:

Well, of course if I put an egg down at somebody who doesn't like eggs, I

Mark:

don't know that's of equivalent value.

Mark:

But I will say that it's important to honor it all.

Mark:

I can't say that the equivalency is there.

Mark:

Hmm.

Mark:

Because I think if it.

Mark:

Causes you to be sick, right?

Mark:

That's worse than, I don't like it.

Bruce:

Well, let's talk about gluten for a second.

Bruce:

If there are people in your house or your friends that don't eat

Bruce:

gluten, there are alternatives.

Bruce:

And I wouldn't suggest going after gluten-free bread at a dinner

Bruce:

party, but no, you could still serve great pasta dishes and Mark and I.

Bruce:

Have decided to eat non wheat pastas for lots of reasons.

Bruce:

One is most of them have so much fiber and I'm really pleased with that.

Bruce:

And we've tried most of the non wheat Yeah.

Bruce:

And the non wheat pastas.

Bruce:

And we've, we've tried a lot of them now, some don't.

Bruce:

There are some made with rice and corn that really don't have much fiber at all.

Bruce:

Yeah.

Bruce:

And those are fine for gluten free.

Bruce:

But we found that the pasta is made from legumes, made from

Bruce:

lentils, made from chickpeas.

Bruce:

In chickpeas in particular, the texture of that pasta is almost like wheat.

Bruce:

Yeah.

Bruce:

And there's so much fiber in it.

Mark:

Yeah.

Mark:

We decided that we were gonna kind of cut out a lot of refined carbs

Mark:

in our house to only eat whole wheat bread, to only eat whole grain

Mark:

pasta or wheat alternative pasta.

Mark:

This doesn't have anything to do with except wanting to live healthier.

Mark:

Yep.

Mark:

And make sure that, you know, now that we are.

Mark:

Of a certain age, we're eating better food.

Mark:

If you have friends who have dairy, this is our, my big tip

Mark:

for you who have dairy problems.

Mark:

They can have butter.

Mark:

They can't have milk for whatever reason, whether it's lactose intolerant, whether

Mark:

it's a trigger food for ibs, whatever this is for them with the dairy, let me say

Mark:

that you should check out 800 million.

Mark:

Kosher baking websites because there are 800 million dairy free kosher rescue.

Mark:

If you don't know if you are kosher, you can't serve dairy in

Mark:

the same meal that you serve meat.

Mark:

And so if you're gonna, I don't know, put out a brisket, the

Mark:

dessert has to be dairy free.

Mark:

You can find hundreds of dairy free kosher, just look

Mark:

up kosher desserts online.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Mark:

You'll find hundreds of dairy free desserts.

Bruce:

You will, you might even come up with great black and white cookies.

Bruce:

Mm.

Bruce:

Look, as Mark says, a.

Bruce:

Thousand Kosha bakeries can't be wrong.

Bruce:

I limit my dairy intake and I make French pastries that nobody

Bruce:

believes have no dairy in them.

Bruce:

Coconut milk works.

Bruce:

Cashew milk works.

Bruce:

You can add extra egg yolks to thicken these thinner things.

Bruce:

Thinner like rice milk, and there are ways around this.

Bruce:

Shortening works instead of butter, right?

Bruce:

Of avocado oil works.

Bruce:

We're gonna talk later to Kayla and she has some great ideas for bacon.

Mark:

And let me also say in this allergy free problem, if you have

Mark:

someone with celiac or a known wheat gluten problem, be very careful of

Mark:

the meat and sausages that you buy.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Mark:

The sausages are often.

Mark:

Banded with wheat derivative fillers in the United States and Canada,

Mark:

in North America particularly, and in the United States and Canada.

Mark:

Uh, chicken particularly can be injected with a saline salt solution to plump

Mark:

up the meat, and sometimes there are wheat derivatives in that solution.

Mark:

So you just have to be careful.

Mark:

Just know what you're buying at the supermarket.

Bruce:

You have to read labels because we have a friend who's severely

Bruce:

allergic to sunflowers, and if we serve him some packaged dinner rolls

Bruce:

that I bought and they're made with sunflower oil, which they might

Bruce:

easily be, he's gonna be sick, right?

Bruce:

So I have to read labels carefully on all your frozen stuff, on

Bruce:

your breads, on everything.

Bruce:

Make sure that products aren't hidden in there.

Bruce:

That your friends can't eat.

Mark:

Right?

Mark:

And it also don't forget that just because you're allergic to one thing doesn't mean

Mark:

you're necessarily the, or The person you're serving is allergic to another.

Mark:

For example, I have a terrible allergy, an EpiPen worthy allergy

Mark:

for bumblebees and wasps and hornets.

Mark:

But that's not the same thing as honeybees.

Mark:

Those are actually different kinds of toxins.

Mark:

And so a honey bean, I have no effect on it, and I have no effect eating honey.

Mark:

But if I am stung by a wasp or uh, bumblebee, uh, it's time for the EpiPen.

Bruce:

Are people who are allergic to honeybee stings or

Bruce:

can they not eat honey often?

Bruce:

Wow, that's interesting.

Bruce:

So the toxin actually carries through the whole buns down the, so they're not gonna

Bruce:

eat, eat the bees either, who eats bees?

Bruce:

Right.

Bruce:

Well, and here's a tip also that I think is just good social graces.

Bruce:

If you have friends coming over and somebody doesn't like

Bruce:

something or can't eat something and you decide, you know what?

Bruce:

I still wanna make this dish for everyone else, so I'm gonna

Bruce:

make something special for them.

Bruce:

Don't make a thing about it at the table, right?

Bruce:

You just let them know before dinner that what you put down in front of

Bruce:

them is okay for them, and you just serve them like everybody else.

Bruce:

They'll know they can eat it and they don't have to feel embarrassed.

Mark:

We have an example about this, so Bruce made this really fantastic

Mark:

Nevo Mexican cuisine dinner party meal.

Mark:

For a group of friends, and one of the courses was tongue tacos and

Mark:

he beef tongue tacos, which I love Langu tacos more than I can say.

Mark:

Me too.

Mark:

And he made the tortillas and he made the whole bit.

Mark:

And we had these tacos, but one friend just couldn't in advance

Mark:

had said that she just couldn't stomach the idea of eating tongue.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Mark:

Stomach, tongue.

Mark:

Uh uh, uh, couldn't stomach the idea of eating tongue.

Mark:

So Bruce, Actually grilled up, boneless skinless chicken and cut it up and it

Mark:

looked like, oh, the rest of our tongue.

Bruce:

It did.

Bruce:

And I didn't tell anyone else at the table.

Bruce:

I told her that when we get to dinner, you can eat everything, don't worry about it.

Bruce:

And she didn't have to feel embarrassed that everyone was being.

Bruce:

You know, told she doesn't want to eat what we do.

Mark:

Right.

Mark:

It's because it is also embarrassing, especially not, allergies aren't

Mark:

embarrassing that food likes and dislikes can be very embarrassing.

Mark:

They can, I mean, I remember I, I've gotten over this, but I remember

Mark:

when I just absolutely couldn't stand cilantro and it's kind of,

Mark:

that was when I first met you.

Mark:

Embarrassing to say, I don't like cilantro.

Mark:

Oh God.

Mark:

I went to, A dinner party once years ago and I was served cilantro pesto,

Mark:

and I honestly thought I was gonna die.

Mark:

I thought I'm gonna barf my guts out.

Mark:

I am totally over the cilantro thing and I am totally okay with

Mark:

it now, so you can also learn.

Mark:

Food dis dislikes and he dislikes to get over them.

Mark:

My goodness.

Mark:

But allergies are a different matter entirely.

Mark:

You can't learn your way out of them.

Bruce:

I learned my way out of a huge food, dislike.

Bruce:

When I first met Mark.

Bruce:

My identity as an eater was as a chef.

Bruce:

Yeah.

Bruce:

Well, was I don't eat anything that lived in water.

Bruce:

Here I am the chef.

Bruce:

I would cook it, I would serve it, but I wouldn't eat fish.

Bruce:

I wouldn't eat shellfish.

Bruce:

And I learned over the years to like it, and I decided if I'm gonna be a food

Bruce:

professional and I'm gonna write cookbooks and I'm gonna talk about food and write

Bruce:

about food, I can't line out a whole kind of food that like half the world lives on.

Mark:

Yeah.

Mark:

Bruce had gone back to work for an advertising company and he was a

Mark:

creative director at this ad company.

Mark:

Post chef school, post everything.

Mark:

We, we were together just a little bit of time and he went back to work for this ad

Mark:

agency as the creative director of a small boutique agency, and he would go to his

Mark:

Japanese restaurant every day for lunch.

Mark:

And so I met him one day.

Mark:

We were living in New York City and I met him on Central Park South and we went to

Mark:

this Ishk, this uh, Japanese restaurant.

Mark:

I think it's long gone.

Mark:

. Um, together for lunch, and he ordered the yellowtail grilled yellow

Mark:

tail collar and then sea urchin.

Mark:

And I said to him, you know, you're over your seafood thing.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Mark:

You're officially done with it now.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Mark:

You can't say you don't eat seafood.

Mark:

Mm.

Mark:

Uh, he still, I will say he still doesn't like fishy seafood.

Bruce:

I don't like anchovies.

Bruce:

Yeah.

Bruce:

I like fresh anchovies in the grill, but I don't like tin anchovies.

Bruce:

Yeah.

Bruce:

Which I love.

Bruce:

And I don't like herring.

Mark:

Which is really the saddest thing and may prove that you're

Mark:

really actually not a Jew.

Mark:

So

Mark:

there you go.

Mark:

Okay.

Mark:

So, um, before we get up next to our one minute, can you take, let me say

Mark:

that it would be great if you could rate or subscribe to this podcast.

Mark:

You can subscribe to it so that it's always drops in your feed every week.

Mark:

That would be brilliant on whatever platform you're listening to this podcast

Mark:

on, whether it be Spotify or Google.

Mark:

Google Podcasts or geezer or Apple podcasts or any of the dozens of platforms

Mark:

there are out there, that would be great.

Mark:

And if you can, and if the platform allows, write a rating

Mark:

or give it a starred review, five of course would be lovely.

Mark:

But a rating or starred review helps this otherwise unsupported podcast

Mark:

to stay in the algorithms because we're not paying for placement.

Mark:

So there you go.

Mark:

And the world is increasingly a pay for placement place.

Mark:

Okay.

Mark:

Next up are one minute cooking tip.

Bruce:

This is a new one for me and I love it.

Bruce:

Pile potato chips on top of your hamburger, especially salt

Bruce:

and vinegar chips with a little pickle relish on a hamburger.

Bruce:

Okay, so we smash it down

Mark:

and are supported by doc.

Mark:

Smith, the cardiologist at we, we clearly just picked up a supporter

Mark:

who is underwriting our podcast.

Mark:

Really?

Mark:

Potato chip, potato

Bruce:

chips on a hamburger.

Bruce:

I'll smash it down.

Bruce:

Then you don't need to eat the french fries cuz you're potato.

Mark:

You don't need to eat them.

Mark:

But you can,

Bruce:

of course you can.

Bruce:

You can always, then you could crumble ground beef cooked on your french

Bruce:

fries, and you can have it both ways.

Bruce:

That's just called poutine.

Bruce:

So you have poutine with a burger with potato chips on it.

Bruce:

That's what's, that's your cooking tip for the week.

Mark:

Oh, I, okay.

Mark:

You know what?

Mark:

This may be the lamest cooking tip I've ever heard, right?

Bruce:

Salt and vinegar chips with sweet pickle Resh on a

Bruce:

burger is a great cooking tip.

Mark:

I'm gonna just leave it there.

Mark:

We're gonna move on.

Mark:

Okay.

Mark:

Up next Bruce's interview with Kayla Cappiello.

Mark:

She's the author of Easy Allergy Free Cooking, a cookbook that will

Mark:

help you negotiate the world of food allergies while you still

Mark:

cook for your friends and family.

Bruce:

Today I'm speaking with Kayla Cappiello.

Bruce:

She is the author of Easy Allergy Free Cooking, simple and Safe

Bruce:

Everyday Recipes for Everyone.

Bruce:

Hey, Kayla.

Bruce:

Hi.

Kayla:

Thank you so much for having

Bruce:

me.

Bruce:

My pleasure.

Bruce:

You are an expert in cooking without the most common allergens.

Bruce:

That would be milk, gluten, nuts, and it's all from your personal experience.

Bruce:

So tell me about your journey.

Kayla:

Of course.

Kayla:

So when I was younger, I guess I always knew I was allergic to nuts.

Kayla:

I had tried pistachios at a friend's house when I was pretty young.

Kayla:

I was in middle school and I immediately had a reaction.

Kayla:

So I immediately went to the allergist and got tested and they told me all

Kayla:

of the tree nuts I'm allergic to.

Kayla:

It's actually not every single one, which is kind of weird.

Kayla:

Um, but it's specifically.

Kayla:

Almonds, um, pistachios, hazelnuts and walnuts.

Kayla:

So that came out of my diet like immediately, but it wasn't until

Kayla:

I was out of college and started working like in corporate America

Kayla:

that I learned I had the celiac genes.

Kayla:

So I went gluten free.

Kayla:

And in the same testing, they didn't know what was going on with me.

Kayla:

I would just felt sick all the time.

Kayla:

She did sneak a test in there for lactose intolerance, and I was

Kayla:

like, no, it'll come back fine.

Kayla:

Like I eat cheese all the time.

Kayla:

And then I was like, oh, okay.

Kayla:

So those two kind of hit at the same time, but I was a little older and

Kayla:

a little more mature, so I felt like maybe I had a better handle on it

Kayla:

than when I found out about the nuts.

Bruce:

When did you get into cooking and how did that become

Bruce:

like a major part of your life?

Kayla:

So when I went to college, I obviously started cooking for

Kayla:

myself for the first time, and they were very, Simple, like approachable

Kayla:

things that anyone cooking for the first time is gonna make.

Kayla:

But I think what really catapulted me into starting to make like harder

Kayla:

and more difficult recipes was when I found out about these allergies.

Kayla:

I mean, immediately after finding that out, it's like you

Kayla:

think you can't go anywhere.

Kayla:

So you can't go to the restaurants.

Kayla:

You like to go, you can't pick up the pizza you like to

Kayla:

pick up and it's very jarring.

Kayla:

So I think initially I just set out to recreate some of those flavors and some

Kayla:

of those recipes in an approachable way cuz I'm not like a Michelin star chef.

Kayla:

It's really hard to follow a really difficult recipe.

Kayla:

And I searched and searched for ones that were.

Kayla:

Easy and approachable and had all my allergy requirements,

Kayla:

and I just wasn't out there.

Kayla:

So I think I started the recipe journey when I couldn't go get the food that I

Kayla:

just like to pick up on a normal basis.

Bruce:

So, Kayla, when you're forced to cut certain foods out of your life,

Bruce:

or if you're cooking for someone who has to follow a very strict diet, Do

Bruce:

substitutions work for cheese, pasta and grains, or is it simply all or nothing?

Kayla:

That's a tough question.

Kayla:

For somebody like me who physically cannot eat these things, it

Kayla:

fills a hole or like a void in.

Kayla:

Whatever kind of dish that I'm making.

Kayla:

So yes, if I'm making a pizza, like I'm gonna want some sort of cheesy

Kayla:

texture, so it does fill that void.

Kayla:

But does it replicate exactly that cheesy texture I was getting

Kayla:

from my favorite pizza place?

Kayla:

No.

Kayla:

Like of course not.

Kayla:

I'm not here to sell you on substitutions, being perfect

Kayla:

substitutions, but I think that they allow me to have things that I miss.

Kayla:

From when I was like not eating this way.

Bruce:

One of the most useful things about your book is that in the first chapter,

Bruce:

you have a series of baking substitutions, and what surprised me the most was eggs.

Bruce:

So many experts talk about using blacks or chia seeds, but you have a few more.

Bruce:

Common and easy to use options.

Bruce:

Can you talk about egg substitutions in baking?

Kayla:

I'm not obviously like allergic to eggs, but I felt like giving up the dairy.

Kayla:

I was so close to these baked goods being like totally vegan that I was

Kayla:

like, why not just go the extra step and cut out like the eggs or the

Kayla:

cholesterol that it has or the fat.

Kayla:

So I wanted to add something back to the recipe that had maybe a

Kayla:

similar amount of moisture and was kind of a similar texture.

Kayla:

I needed something liquidy and it was really off putting as somebody, like I

Kayla:

said, who really doesn't have a lot of like cooking or baking training to be

Kayla:

like, oh, now I have to carry, like all these different ingredients that I never.

Kayla:

Would have before.

Kayla:

Yeah.

Kayla:

So what really drew me to finding substitutes, were using things

Kayla:

I already had in my kitchen, so mashed bananas, apple sauce.

Kayla:

Sometimes I use vegan yogurt instead because I want it to be things that

Kayla:

I already have and I don't have to look at the whole list of ingredients

Kayla:

and go out and buy it at the grocery store if I don't have it already.

Kayla:

Laying around the house, it seems like too big of a hassle for me,

Kayla:

and after dinner, if I just want.

Kayla:

Oh, let's throw together like this quick banana bread.

Kayla:

Do I have all these ingredients?

Kayla:

I just wanna be able to have them on hand.

Kayla:

And I think that makes it more approachable

Bruce:

and I find that so many people don't have a clue as to how

Bruce:

to bake if you tell them no butter.

Bruce:

Yeah, after looking at your book, it's actually quite simple, isn't it?

Kayla:

Yeah, so I definitely experimented a lot.

Kayla:

I did like a lot of research on just cutting out all kinds of butter and

Kayla:

what could replace it, and I feel like I do have some things in the

Kayla:

cookbook about it, but I've been using it more in my recent life as well.

Kayla:

If you replace butter with avocado, then it's still like a healthy fat,

Kayla:

but it's not coming from dairy, so I've been experimenting with that as well.

Kayla:

But replacing it with, if you can have.

Kayla:

Peanut butter, or if you can have like a peanut free butter, like I buy chickpea

Kayla:

butter as well, it's like anything with that texture is able to recreate.

Kayla:

I mean, it's not gonna be exactly the same, but is it gonna be a healthier

Kayla:

version that you can eat that reminds you of the version that's unhealthy?

Kayla:

Yeah.

Bruce:

So when it comes to other recipes in your book, you

Bruce:

start off with what you call.

Bruce:

Life changing dressings and condiments.

Bruce:

So you can't call it that without me asking how did they change your life?

Kayla:

So I am definitely one of those people who like, I

Kayla:

don't crave chicken fingers.

Kayla:

I want the honey mustard, so I'm going to make the chicken fingers.

Kayla:

So I was like, I.

Kayla:

I'm buying all these condiments and using them all, but sometimes it's a

Kayla:

bit off-putting if I think about it, to look at the back ingredients and be

Kayla:

like, I can't pronounce any of this.

Kayla:

So some of these I tried to make.

Kayla:

Either it was my own salad dressing or my own vinegarette, so I knew

Kayla:

exactly where it was coming from.

Kayla:

But then other ones are condiments that I do use.

Kayla:

Like for instance, the campfire sauce.

Kayla:

I can't find anything out there that even resembles it.

Kayla:

But when I was in college, we used to go to this wing place and they

Kayla:

had this thing called campfire sauce.

Kayla:

And when we asked about it, they were like, oh, it's just like a few of

Kayla:

your normal condiments mixed together.

Kayla:

And I like set out on a quest to figure out how to replicate it.

Kayla:

Because since then I have not seen it anywhere.

Kayla:

I have not been able to have it anywhere and I can't buy it in the grocery store.

Kayla:

So I was like, I need to find my way to make it at home, to be able to enjoy it.

Kayla:

Tell me about the campfire sauce.

Kayla:

What is it?

Kayla:

Campfire sauce is specifically barbecue sauce and mayo.

Kayla:

Hmm.

Kayla:

And then I like to make it a bit spicier, so I add hot sauce.

Kayla:

To it with garlic powder and chili powder, so you get a bit of that mayo aioli

Kayla:

taste, but you also get like a quick punch of spiciness, which is my favorite.

Kayla:

And then the gold rush sauce was very similar.

Kayla:

I had it when I was in college and needed to recreate it.

Kayla:

And this one is still barbecue sauce with the garlic powder and hot sauce.

Kayla:

But instead of adding mayo, it uses honey mustard, so it gives

Kayla:

that like nice mustard undertone, which is also one of my favorites.

Kayla:

We're making chicken fingers at home.

Kayla:

I'm definitely serving both of those sauces.

Bruce:

You offer up a chapter in the book called Loaded Salads

Bruce:

and their main core salads.

Bruce:

Do you have a formula you follow when building a satisfying salad?

Kayla:

I'm very put off by salads that are 75% lettuce and

Kayla:

just a little bit of toppings.

Kayla:

I just feel that if all your toppings are pretty healthy,

Kayla:

why can't I have a good ratio?

Kayla:

So I really try to use the equal amount of toppings to equal amount

Kayla:

of lettuce or greens, and I really focus on adding a crunch to each one.

Kayla:

So whether it's a meat-based crunch like chicken, chicken, cutlets.

Kayla:

Something that comes from like what a main course would have, or

Kayla:

instead adding some sort of like crispy potato or a homemade crew ton.

Kayla:

I just really love a loaded salad and I don't want it to be loaded with greens,

Kayla:

but I still want it to be healthy.

Kayla:

So I was like on a quest to teach people that like salads

Kayla:

can actually be really good.

Bruce:

Let's talk about a salad.

Bruce:

The Asian chicken salad in your book has a headnote that says, I love this.

Bruce:

Who says you can't put fries on a salad?

Bruce:

Tell me about this dish.

Kayla:

I used to get this dish at Applebee's, obviously before I knew about

Kayla:

any of my allergies, and it was like this Asian chicken wrap and it was delicious.

Kayla:

But I needed to find a way to like recreate those flavors.

Kayla:

But do it in a healthier way.

Kayla:

Mm-hmm.

Kayla:

So I ended up making carrot fries cuz I remembered that that

Kayla:

wrap had shredded carrots in it.

Kayla:

So we had just gotten an air fryer and I was experimenting, making all these

Kayla:

healthy versions of fries and I think the carrot ones came out the best.

Kayla:

And when I was able to make them with some Asian ingredients, a

Kayla:

little bit of gluten-free soy sauce and translate them into something

Kayla:

crunchy you could put on a salad.

Kayla:

I was like, this is definitely a win.

Bruce:

Kayla, when you cut gluten and dairy out of your diet.

Bruce:

You would expect, anyone would expect that pizza was gone from your life, but you

Bruce:

offer up no less than nine pizzas in your book that are allergen free, including

Bruce:

skinny buffalo chicken pizza, and butternut squash and roasted garlic pizza.

Bruce:

Tell me about making pizza without gluten or dairy.

Kayla:

So pizza was always one of my favorite things to have.

Kayla:

Even way back, like when I was a kid, like the best night of the

Kayla:

week was Friday ordering in pizza.

Kayla:

So it was just so off putting to be like, oh, I can't just stop by

Kayla:

my favorite pizza place and pick something up on my way home from work

Kayla:

or after a night out with my friends.

Kayla:

It was just such a staple that I enjoyed in my diet.

Kayla:

So I really set out on a quest to be able to make that again at home

Kayla:

with whatever toppings I wanted.

Kayla:

So I started off in the beginning of my cookbook.

Kayla:

There's some easy ways to make things that are like pizza, but not actually pizza.

Kayla:

So I have how to make french bread pizza, but like you don't have

Kayla:

to make the crust from scratch.

Kayla:

You just use a gluten-free baguette and make it that way.

Kayla:

Or pizza toast or pizza bagels.

Kayla:

So I started that way with the easy way of these approachable crusts

Kayla:

and whatever toppings I wanted.

Kayla:

Mm-hmm.

Kayla:

But as I got better at that, I started moving into more crusts that either

Kayla:

I would make or I would buy a crust.

Kayla:

If you actually call your local pizza shop and they like have gluten

Kayla:

free crusts, they'll sell you the crust or the gluten free dough so

Kayla:

you can make it at home by yourself.

Kayla:

And then just choosing like those gluten-free, dairy free toppings was

Kayla:

so freeing to me because you could come up with all of these combos that I used

Kayla:

to have in the unhealthy way that was like causing my body to absolutely freak

Kayla:

out because I was allergic to so much.

Kayla:

So now this healthy way that my body knows how to process.

Kayla:

And yes, it is different.

Kayla:

It has like gluten-free chicken fingers, it has dairy-free cheese,

Kayla:

it has like dairy-free ranch on top.

Kayla:

But does it reference those same flavors that I used to love in my past?

Kayla:

Definitely

Bruce:

in your dessert chapter, you empathize with everyone who can't eat

Bruce:

most bakery baked treats, whether it's because of diabetes or high cholesterol,

Bruce:

celiac or nut allergies like you have, but yet you have a dozen incredible

Bruce:

desserts that can satisfy almost everyone.

Bruce:

Was this the hardest chapter to create?

Kayla:

Absolutely.

Kayla:

The baking world is so different than the cooking world.

Kayla:

When I'm coming up with a cooking recipe, like for dinner or salads,

Kayla:

it's like if someone adds in more garlic than I suggest, or less

Kayla:

sauce than I suggest, it's still gonna come out in a pleasing way.

Kayla:

But with baking, it's like all a science.

Kayla:

Like if you add a little bit of this or not enough of this, it's

Kayla:

not gonna come out the same way.

Kayla:

And that was really challenging for me.

Kayla:

I think I started with the intent of.

Kayla:

Here are my favorite baked goods, and how am I gonna remake them at home in a way

Kayla:

that's healthy and digestible and can help other people with dietary restrictions.

Kayla:

But I think I spent way more time on that chapter, recreating the recipes, testing

Kayla:

them, asking my family to test them, just to make sure like they came out good.

Kayla:

Because yeah, I'm sitting here.

Kayla:

Like replicating eggs with apple sauce, but is that gonna be

Kayla:

pleasing to someone who's maybe not me with my dietary restrictions?

Kayla:

So I would make it and let a lot of people test them, make a lot of people make it,

Kayla:

and I think that was the hardest chapter, but it was definitely the most satisfying.

Bruce:

Is there any one particular dessert in that chapter that you're

Bruce:

really proud of that you think it will just please everybody, no

Bruce:

matter what they can or can't eat?

Kayla:

Oh yes.

Kayla:

So I have in there, um, banana blondies with chocolate chips on top.

Kayla:

Mm-hmm.

Kayla:

And I just think, yes, everybody's making banana bread and I love banana bread, but

Kayla:

the blondies are just on another level.

Kayla:

They're kind of like brownies and have the same shape as brownies.

Kayla:

But they're loaded with healthy ingredients, and I think that's

Kayla:

the best way to go for dessert.

Kayla:

If it's healthy, you don't have to feel bad about eating too much, and

Kayla:

you can kind of just do it every night.

Kayla:

I definitely eat dessert every night.

Bruce:

Kayla Capello, author of Easy Allergy Free Cooking, simple and

Bruce:

Safe Every Day Recipes for everyone.

Bruce:

Great.

Bruce:

Good luck with the book and thanks for spending some time with me this morning.

Kayla:

Thank you.

Mark:

Our cooking for, our friends and family.

Mark:

Our family is more, uh, difficult than our friends, our fleet.

Bruce:

Oh, we, our friends will eat just about anything.

Bruce:

Friends.

Bruce:

Most of our friends, we have one or two friends who have a list going,

Bruce:

but most of our friends eat anything.

Bruce:

Right.

Bruce:

It's our family.

Bruce:

Mo, your mother will eat anything.

Bruce:

Right.

Bruce:

My mother will eat absolutely anything.

Bruce:

Right.

Bruce:

It's your brother and sister-in-law have issues.

Bruce:

Some are medical, some are likes and dislikes.

Mark:

Yes.

Mark:

My brother has a medical issue.

Mark:

Yeah.

Mark:

My and my sister-in-law has very distinct.

Mark:

Dislikes.

Mark:

Your sister has

Bruce:

dis My sister has distinct dislikes and the things she doesn't like to eat.

Bruce:

And

Mark:

our niece by your sister is a vegan?

Bruce:

Yeah, she's a, she, well, she's a vegetarian.

Bruce:

She eats cheese and she's 16 years old and she's a vegetarian.

Bruce:

She has 19 animals.

Bruce:

She's

Mark:

a vegetarian who doesn't eat vegetables.

Bruce:

That's a Well, you go figure that one out.

Bruce:

Thank goodness.

Bruce:

Potatoes are a vegetable.

Bruce:

Yeah.

Mark:

So, um, uh, yeah.

Mark:

Anyways.

Mark:

So cooking for our families often is a little bit difficult.

Mark:

We always cook a lot of Christmas dinner for my family, and there are

Mark:

several issues we have to work around to make a taco bar or to buy deli.

Bruce:

We buy, oh, that's my favorite Christmas dinner.

Bruce:

I go to a kosher deli in St.

Bruce:

Louis when we visit Mark's family.

Bruce:

I am not from St.

Bruce:

Louis, I'm from Dallas, but the family's there now.

Bruce:

So I go, we go to this kosher deli and for Christmas Day, We bring

Bruce:

in platters of pastrami and corn beef and Kens and chopped liver.

Bruce:

It's delicious.

Mark:

Okay, before we get to the last episode of this podcast, let

Mark:

me say that we have a newsletter.

Mark:

It goes out every two to three weeks, somewhere in there.

Mark:

It's not every week by any stretch of the imagination.

Mark:

The content is not related to this podcast.

Mark:

It is sometimes lifestyle, sometimes about Bruce's knitting, sometimes recipes.

Mark:

It just depends really, it.

Mark:

Actually depends.

Mark:

I do the writing of it.

Mark:

It depends on what I want to write about that week.

Mark:

So there you go.

Mark:

And you can join that by going to our website, bruce mark.com.

Mark:

There is a signup form there for our newsletter.

Mark:

Let me say that I do not see your name nor your email address, so it cannot

Mark:

be captured by me nor captured by the provider to sell it to other lists, and

Mark:

you can always unsubscribe at any time.

Mark:

Thanks for doing that.

Mark:

Okay, up next, as is always the tradition, what's making us happy.

Mark:

In food this week,

Bruce:

pizza bagels.

Bruce:

I've been shooting a ton of TikTok videos with this look and cook

Bruce:

format, which is the format of our new book coming out in November.

Bruce:

You should check out our TikTok channels Cooking.

Bruce:

It's cooking with Bruce and Mark Bruce and Mark and I I did a look and cook

Bruce:

pizza bagel in the air fryer yesterday and oh, it was delicious and it's beautiful

Bruce:

and it's fun and it was a bagel and marinara and mozzarella and Parmesan

Bruce:

and pepperoni and olive oil garden.

Mark:

My rear end off yesterday, I've got the last of the

Mark:

malts we had, I don't know.

Mark:

Five cubic, five cubic yards of mulch delivered and I have finally

Mark:

gotten the last of it down.

Mark:

It went down yesterday.

Mark:

I kind of killed myself to get the last of it in, so it is now all in.

Mark:

And I came in and scarfed down a pizza bagel some lunch.

Mark:

You earned it.

Mark:

So you earned it.

Mark:

I was.

Mark:

Starving.

Mark:

What's making me happy in food this week is my standard breakfast.

Mark:

I don't know if I've ever told you this, but I have a very

Mark:

standard breakfast at this point.

Mark:

Mostly it is a piece of hard cheese.

Mark:

I go buy or Bruce buys for me.

Mark:

Hard age.

Mark:

Cheddars, hard gudas, the really hard stuff, the crumbly stuff

Mark:

with all the crystals in it.

Mark:

Sometimes I get fresh, fresher cheeses like came bears.

Mark:

But anyway, I have a piece of cheese and a.

Mark:

Big handful of blueberries and that is my breakfast almost every morning.

Mark:

And I'll tell you, it makes me very happy.

Mark:

I stand at the counter and make my coffee as I eat my piece of cheese and

Mark:

have my big handful of blueberries.

Mark:

And I, I, I have kind of gotten off the toast racket.

Mark:

Um, it's occasionally I'll have toast, especially if I'm gonna go work in

Mark:

the garden as I did this week, cuz I was gonna go out and work in the

Mark:

garden and I knew I needed the carbs.

Mark:

Hmm.

Mark:

But.

Mark:

That breakfast makes me very happy every morning.

Mark:

So Bruce keeps me stocked and hard cheeses and blueberries.

Mark:

It's a delicious breakfast.

Mark:

Oh, I guess a pretty low carb

Bruce:

breakfast, right?

Bruce:

I mean, oh yeah.

Bruce:

Blueberries are a good carb.

Bruce:

They've got fiber fruits.

Bruce:

Good for you.

Bruce:

You should eat, of course.

Bruce:

More fruit.

Bruce:

Of

Mark:

course you should.

Mark:

Okay, so that's the podcast for this week.

Mark:

Thanks for joining us.

Mark:

We know there are lots of podcasts out there.

Mark:

We know there is a wide selection of food podcasts.

Mark:

Thank you for being a part of our journey and our podcast.

Mark:

We certainly appreciate that you're here with us and we would

Mark:

like to know more about you.

Mark:

Connect with us on social media.

Mark:

There's a cooking with Bruce and Mark.

Mark:

I'm just have you tip all these names, cooking with Bruce

Mark:

and Mark channel on TikTok.

Mark:

As we already said, there's a cooking, uh, with Bruce and Mark.

Mark:

Group

Bruce:

on Facebook.

Bruce:

Yeah.

Bruce:

Go there and tell us what's making you happy in food this week, cuz

Bruce:

we tell you it's making us happy.

Bruce:

I wanna know what's making

Mark:

you happy.

Mark:

Yeah.

Mark:

Go there and you can connect with us under our own names,

Mark:

Bruce a Weinstein on Instagram or Mark Scarborough on Instagram.

Mark:

We're there too.

Mark:

And we would be glad to share more of food with you.

Bruce:

And don't forget to subscribe to this podcast.

Bruce:

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About the Podcast

Cooking with Bruce and Mark
Fantastic recipes, culinary science, a little judgment, hysterical banter, love and laughs--you know, life.
Join us, Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough, for weekly episodes all about food, cooking, recipes, and maybe a little marital strife on air. After writing thirty-six cookbooks, we've got countless opinions and ideas on ingredients, recipes, the nature of the cookbook-writing business, and much more. If you've got a passion for food, we also hope to up your game once and a while and to make you laugh most of the time. Come along for the ride! There's plenty of room!

About your host

Profile picture for Mark Scarbrough

Mark Scarbrough

Former lit professor, current cookbook writer, creator of two podcasts, writer of thirty-five (and counting) cookbooks, author of one memoir (coming soon!), married to a chef (my cookbook co-writer, Bruce Weinstein), and with him, the owner of two collies, all in a very rural spot in New England. My life's full and I'm up for more challenges!